Chapter 10 Chapter nine

Seldon leaned back on the back of the chair, which reclined with his movements, allowing him to adopt a half-lying position.He rested his hands behind his head, his eyes glazed over, and his breathing was soft. Dors was across the room, closing her reader and putting the microfilm back where it belonged.She had just been digging into the Florian incident in Trantor's early history, revising some of her early views, and now she found it a good pastime to have a moment's leisure to ponder Seldon's thoughts.His preoccupation was nothing less than psychohistory.He will probably spend the rest of his life exploring the ins and outs of this semi-chaotic technology, and may die before psychohistory is complete, leaving it to others (such as Amari Well, assuming he's not exhausted himself of course), he'll be heartbroken for it.Yet it gave him a huge impetus to survive.As long as this problem haunted him through and through, he would live longer—and that was a great comfort to her.But she knew that one day she would lose him, and the thought made her feel heartbroken again.It wasn't like that at first, when her mission was just to keep him safe, for what he knew.When did this become a personal need?How could she have personal needs?Why did she feel so uneasy when this man was out of her sight?Why even when she knew he was so safe that the fundamental laws ingrained in her did not react?All she needs to care about is his safety, so how did the rest break into her heart by itself?Long ago, when she found the sentiment clear, she had spoken to Demerzel about it.He said to her quite seriously: "You are complex, Dors, and the questions you speak of have no simple answers. I have met individuals in my life whose presence has made my mind more comfortable, The response is more pleasant. I have tried to compare the relative impact of their existence and eventual loss on me, to see whether I have gained or lost. In the process of processing, one thing has become more and more clear .It is that I am more joyful in their company than sad in their loss. Overall, it is better to have than to have nothing." She thought: Harry will disappear one day, and now every day passes It's just one day closer to that day, and I'd better not think about it.

In order to keep herself from thinking about this question, she decided to interrupt Seldon: "What are you thinking about, Harry." "What?" Seldon's eyes flashed. "Psychohistory, I guess. I guess you've hit a dead end again." "Oh no, I'm not thinking about psychohistory at all." Seldon laughed suddenly. "You want to know what I'm thinking?—hair!" "Hair? Whose hair?" "For now, it's yours." He looked at her tenderly. "Is there a problem? Should I try a different color? Or should it be gray after all these years?"

"Don't be silly. Who would want you to have gray hair.—but that brings me to some other questions. Nishayah, for example." "Nishia? What's that?" "This has nothing to do with the pre-Imperial kingdom of Trantor, so I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. It's a world, a small world. Isolated, unimportant, uninterested. I know about it. It's because I've spent a lot of time investigating it. Of all the twenty-five million worlds, there are very few that can make waves with one stone. And I doubt there's any other world like Nisha It's as insignificant as Asia, but it's crucial. You get the point."

Pushing her references aside, Dors said, "Since when did you become interested in specious subjects? Didn't you always tell me you hated specious things? What's insignificant and yet crucial?" "Oh, I don't mind when I speak paradoxically. Joranan is from Nishia, now you understand." "Aha, what you care about is Qiao Ruonan." "Yes. I saw some of his speeches—Ricky insisted. It wasn't very coherent, but the overall effect was quite demagogic. Ricky was impressed by him." "I guess anyone from Dal would be captivated by him, Harry. Joranan's relentless appeal for regional equality would naturally be echoed by the vast majority of the downtrodden hot trough workers. You remember when we were in Dal matter?"

"I remember it very clearly, and of course I don't blame the little ones. I'm just confused that Joronan came from Nishia." Dors shrugged: "There's no fuss about it, Jo Ruonan has to have a place of origin, and on the contrary, Nishaya, like any other world, always sends people to other worlds, including Sichuan. Tuo." "True. But as I said before, I put a lot of effort into investigating Nishiya. I even managed to make hyperspace contacts with some of the minor local officials, which cost a lot of money and I'm too embarrassed to be in the department. Reimbursed."

"Then did you find anything that made you feel that the money was not spent unjustly?" "I think so. You know, Joranan often tells little stories to underscore his point, and those stories are said to be folklore from his home planet, Nishia. This makes him a popular folk philosopher on Trantor." , full of unadorned philosophic wisdom. Little stories set the stage for his speeches. Make him look like he came from an insignificant world and grew up on a small isolated farm in the middle of nowhere. The people love this sort of legend , especially the Trantorians, though they would rather die if they were really dragged to a backwater, but that doesn't stop them from liking to dream about that environment."

"Does it matter?" "Strangely enough, the Nishayan I was talking to was not familiar with any of these stories." "It's no big deal, Harry. Nishia may be a small world, but it's a world after all. What's popular in Joranan's area isn't necessarily popular in your little official's area." "No, no. Folktales, there may be one version or another, but they usually prevail throughout the world. Besides, I had a hard time understanding what the guy said. He spoke Galactic Standard with a with a strong regional accent. I've also talked to other people in that world, just to check, and they all do have the same accent."

"so what?" "But Joe Ruonan doesn't have that accent. He speaks the perfect Trantorian. Much better than I do, in fact. I pronounce the letter 'r' with a Helican accent. He doesn't. According to the record, He came to Trantor when he was nineteen. In my opinion, it is impossible to be completely Erased. No matter how long he's been on Trantor, some traces of his accent are going to stick around—just look at Ricky, who's slipping a few Dahl accents from time to time." "What can you infer from this?" "My deduction is--you know I've sat here all night, reasoning like a reasoning machine--that Joranan is not a Nishayan at all. In fact, I think Nishaya is his origin Just because it's so desolate and remote, no one would think to verify it. He must have done a thorough search in the computer to find such a world, so that the chance of his lie being exposed can be minimized. "

"But that's ridiculous, Harry. Why would he pretend to be from another world? That would mean he'd have to go to great lengths to falsify the records." "That's probably what he did. He probably had enough adherents in the Civil Affairs Department to make this falsification work possible. It's more likely that all those who participated in the falsification only changed a small part of the record, and they were all too Blind obedience, won't talk about it with other people." "But you still didn't answer me—why did you change it?" "I suspect it's because Qiao Ruonan doesn't want people to know his real origin."

"Why? All worlds are equal in the Empire, both legally and customarily." "I don't know that. Those theoretical high notes somehow never really materialized." "Then where did he come from? What do you think?" "There are some low opinions. It comes back to the hair problem." "What's the matter with the hair?" "I was sitting there with Jo Ruonan, and I felt uncomfortable looking at him, and I didn't know why I felt uncomfortable at the time. I finally realized that it was his hair that made me feel uncomfortable. It was him. Something in the hair, alive and radiant... a perfection I had never seen before. Then I understood. His hair was artificial hair, carefully grown on a scalp that was supposed to be pristine .”

"Should it be?" Dors narrowed her eyes.Obviously she understood immediately: "Could it be that you mean—" "Yeah, that's what I mean. He's from the Megan area on Trantor that's centered around the past, full of religious myths. That's what he's trying to hide as much as he can."